Four ways to enhance direct distribution to drive revenue and save time

As consumers engage again with travel following the pandemic, the increased demand for hotel bookings brings with it an increased demand for effective technology. Additionally, guests have become choice-rich and patience poor, seeking unique and personalised experiences, which start at the time of booking. As a result, the focus on enhancing the guest’s digital experience has never been sharper and to meet that demand, Guestline has improved its own hotel booking engine, Direct Booking Manager (DBM).

Flexible and agile enough to support guests through their journey to increase that all-important conversion rate, how can DBM improve the direct booking experience?

DBM can be up and running to start delivering bookings across your website, email and social media channels in no time at all. Working in sync with the PMS it delivers full visibility of live availability and rates and as a result, greater efficiency across your operations. DBM transfers full booking details and data directly to the PMS, including guest profile and preferences, upsells and payments without the need for separate, time-consuming manual inputs. Leaving you and your team to focus on what’s important – building guest relations.

Integration has been one of the guiding principles in the development of DBM -not only with the PMS but also a host of third parties to provide the most comprehensive functionality on the market. From deep marketing analytics through to chatbots and point-of-sale, DBM works seamlessly alongside your favourites such as Facebook, Word Press, Google Analytics, Hotelchamp, Triptease and AWIN, to name but a few.

Designed to work with guest preferences and booking behaviours to fully support the guest journey, DBM enables hoteliers to offer a more personalised stay with contextualised  extras based on a selected rate plan to help drive conversions and reduce abandonments. It has the capability to showcase your packages and upsells available at the time a guest books. Consequently, guests can enjoy a more branded and personalised experience and feel more encouraged to book direct, whilst you can enjoy a marked increase in RevPAR.

With the flexibility to work across platforms DBM can also make your website, guest communications, social channels and the drive for direct even more lucrative.

Chris Jones, Guestline Product Manager added, 'Built to ensure consistency in terms of branding and guest experience regardless of platform or device, DBM provides a completely guest-centric focus. Reassured with consistent and relevant branding and a straightforward, intuitive booking process, guests will be more likely to book direct so that you can own the guest journey, capture more revenue and reduce commission payments. A win win!'